Each Wednesday afternoon, an hour and a half before their children begin returning from school, a group of between fifteen and twenty women gather in a neighbor's front yard. Only three of them read with any sort of facility. Although they love music and song, not a single one of them can carry a tune. They are acutely of aware of this fault, but sing their hearts out anyway.
Each time that they get together, one of the three women who can read shares the Gospel of the coming Sunday's Eucharist. In turn, they reflect on the reading, offering opinions that are at times strongly expressed and other times offered as a guestimate. Jesus can be confusing--this they readily admit.
This particular group has been at it for more than ten years now. They are friends, for they trust each other. They are sisters, for they live the same fate--poverty, too many children, not enough water, weariness--and joy in the midst of it all.
They are Church, for they care for themselves and for their neighbors, sharing out the little they have in times of trouble, offering shoulders for the burdens of life, and space for the celebration of life, all of this after the example of Jesus.
They salt our world, preserving it in hope, as it were, in this particular space, for what comes next.
